Page 14 - C.A.L.L. #22 - Fall 2003

KALEIDOSCOPE

On the front page of the ever jovial "Leaves of
,
You see it Twin Oaks" No. 98 of Fall 2002 we found this
works . Now make little report by Mala + many others:
yourself light

Perhaps you At the end of the summer we bid goodbye to
might make
short-term but much-loved members A-drianne
something , for a
change? and Nathan, who returned to Oberlin to finish
their degrees. After several weeks of agonizing,
Raj followed their lead, going on a PAL to try out
grad school in Indiana. Mele also went on leave to

pursue her passion for ornithology by working for
And from the same "Kommuja" under the title "News Hawk Watch at a remote camp in Utah. Lee
from Urupia", we find a long, long dissertation about the returned to Ann Arbor, Tatiana moved to Acorn,
process of change, which sounds strangely familiar to us and tofu intern Lew is trying out life with the

kibbutzniks. Here is only a short excerpt: Krishnas in Pennsylvania. Frodo dropped
membership, headed west for Burning Man, and
"When Urupia became Reality 7 years ago, after 3 years of intensive returned to Twin Oaks as a guest.
meetings, plannings and communal Dreaming - one of our main impulses Our hipness quotient doubled when Anja, Jane,

was to overcome the separation between political activism and and Mary-Margret, Meg, Mele, and Shiloh all
everyday life. Most of our communes' founders had a "political history" returned as members. Other new members include
and were imprinted with longstanding experiences of social opposition Juniper, Kate, Russ, Jason, Madge, Marcello and
and engagement into ecological, feministic, anti-militaristic and Gitta. Non-human arrivals include Hugo, a grey
libertarian groupings. Being politically involved was for a majority stray cat adopted by Hildegard; Marley, Ted and

amongst us like "daily bread", a central component of our personal Samadhi’s new ferret; and Bree, a car named after
identity. the ex-member from whom we purchased it. Other
At the same time, we felt a growing dissatisfaction about the gap new names in our lexicon are the result of name
between political action and our social living conditions: wage work, changes rather than turnover: Lawrence, Jay and
rented housing, daily experienced, various forms of alienation - not the Mary decided to take on more descriptive names
least, concerning our nutrition. This dissatisfaction was coupled with the by becoming (respectively) Lune, Woody, and

wish to discover and explore new forms of political involvement, based Gaea.
not only on the limited amount of leisure time, but rather covering the Our population now stands at 87 adults and 15
entire daily routine. Our political activism should express itself not only kids; despite having already lost several bets along
by opposing the social reality, but also by attempting to live alternatives these lines, recruiting manager Paxus is staking a
in practice. pizza on us hitting pop cap (92 adults) by his son’s

For some of us the founding of our commune meant also a "return home" first birthday (February 14, 2003). High population
from northern Italy, to rediscover roots from which we had been cut off is, of course, dependent on retention as well as
for years; to refind the language of our childhood and youth. The recruiting; on that side of the equation, this
commune offered us the concrete possibility to return to where we summer McCune became the first Oaker to
grew up, to a region from which we had escaped many years ago..." celebrate thirty years of membership.

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